


Respite

by Mindful



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: And Genji, Basically Just Two Soft Kids In Love, Fluff, Jesse Likes Flowers, Light Angst, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Uncertainty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-18 08:01:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14848859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mindful/pseuds/Mindful
Summary: Jesse has always found a delight in gardens.





	Respite

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Magicnation](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magicnation/gifts).



> Dialogue spoken in Japanese is bolded.

Shrouded in the lilac haze of a Hanamura twilight in May, seven rugged creatures follow their designated path through a tall, winding garden. It’s a lovely garden: colorful, well-kept, illuminated by delicate paper lanterns, and completely antithetical to their tastes.  
They are outlaws known as Deadlock, and they are not here to admire the Chrysanthemums. They are equipped with glowing weapons and cold, watchful gazes that don’t seem to be able to stay in one place for too long.

Jesse McCree, however, brings up the rear in the hopes that nobody will notice his particularly watchful gaze that lingers just a little more ardently on the wonders overlooked by his companions. He’s always found a delight in gardens -- a sort of relief in their simultaneous intricacies and simplicities, a sort of cohesion that his life has never known. He loves gardens for their ability to remove him completely from the whirlwind around him and grant him peace for those precious moments. So he walks behind them, lets his fingertips graze the bushes, and tries to pretend he’s focusing on the mission.

It doesn’t take them long to reach their destination at the center of the maze. There are four guards waiting for them when they round a corner of camellias, dressed in burgundy robes with impartial expressions. They stand before the garden’s crown jewel: a dark and ornate pagoda, inside which Deadlock will continue ongoing negotiations with the Shimada clan.  
Jesse recalls a brief, whispered conversation between Captain Hank Belford and an older man, Lou Vaulty, from the dropship: “Why can’t we just video call, again?” He’d said, adjusting his eyepatch. It was his first time on the mission.  
“Shimada’s paranoid. Won’t talk over technology ‘cause of bugs and whatever. Won’t come visit us, so we gotta come to him every damn time. Fuckin’ expensive, s’what it is.” Hank Belford spat at the ground and shook his head, mumbling about “not even gonna reimburse us” and “empire, my ass.”  
For what it was worth, Jesse doesn’t mind being on the Hanamura recon squad. He doesn’t take trips often.

“Disarm your weapons,” says one of the guards. This is their third visit, so Hank Belford knows the drill. He also knows the precise locations of the four omnic snipers he hired to keep watch within a twenty-mile radius of the building, so he complies. With a jerk of his head toward the empty gun in his hands, he instructs the rest of his team to do the same. The same guard then speaks into his earpiece, and then the double doors are pulled open from the inside. In the middle of the room is a long mahogany table with family head Sojiro Shimada seated at the end, flanked on either side by his sons, Genji and Hanzo.

Genji is fidgeting in his chair. His hair is a new shade of fluorescent green and flared up in rebellious tufts about his head. His clothing has changed, too, since the last time Deadlock was in Japan - he’s wearing loose orange scarves and has a stud pierced into his left ear. All of this, alongside his slouch and crossed legs, betrays his utter indifference toward his current circumstances. On the contrary, Hanzo’s sharp face is an unmoving mask. His hair is long and rigid as his shoulders, his posture certainly much more befitting of an heir than his brother.

If Genji is a fledgling sparrow taking his first wingbeats toward freedom, Hanzo is the serpent hidden in the grass, hungry and coiled tight. Deadly.

Deadlock files inside, taking their seats while Sojiro sits in silence, regards each man in turn. Genji stiffens, as if called to attention, when the last of them enters and the doors are closed. Perhaps his father did remind him of etiquette. Perhaps it’s something else. Sojiro murmurs something in Japanese to his eldest, who steeples his fingers and hums in return. He then lifts his gaze to the newcomers, and finally greets them with a smile that does not reach his eyes.

“Welcome back,” he says.

“Evening, Shimada.” Captain Hank Belford gives a cordial nod and nothing more. “Prefer to make this quick as possible.” Sojiro almost chuckles.

“As do I. My wife is waiting at home.” A small, uncertain laugh ripples around the table. Genji and Hanzo take separate glances at their father, unamused.

Sojiro only shakes his head. “Intel has recently provided us with the knowledge that the Overwatch sting is taking place in your region-” He pauses to bring up a holographic map- “from the fifteenth of August to the twenty-third of November. As you are already aware, our shipment from Volskaya reaches Puerto Azul in September.” As he speaks, the area lights up.

“Right. And you need it escorted to New Texas.”  
“Yes. I have prepared an offer for you to consider in exchange for your escorts.”  
“Go on.”  
“Ten million, and we will house your stock here until the sting concludes. I cannot emphasize the risk we would be taking to attempt to escort it ourselves.”  
“As if we aren’t taking the same risk,” Hank Belford murmurs.  
“You know the area. You have connections that I do not have time to make. Overwatch is not conducting a sting in Hanamura. This is the best option for both of us.” At his side, Hanzo subtly quirks an eyebrow, the etchings of a smirk appearing on his face.

The room is dead silent for several beats, and then it is filled with the sound of a throat clearing.

“Could someone direct me t’ the restroom? I really gotta go.” Captain Hank Belford turns with an incredulous emphasis locked tight in his shoulders toward the voice, and then rolls his eyes. Of course it’s Jesse, his youngest recruit, incapable of diplomacy for ten goddamn minutes-

“I will show you.” The younger Shimada son’s voice cuts through the air. His eyes are wide, locked straight ahead, and he looks even more on edge than just minutes ago. A soft pink dusts his cheeks.

“Quickly. **Aihara, accompany them.** ” The guard makes a move to obey, but is stopped by Genji’s hand on his shoulder. “ **There is no need for that, father,** ” says Genji, “I know my way.”

The room waits with bated breath as Sojiro’s gaze flits between Genji and Jesse, who is now shifting back in forth in the manner of a man with bladder pressure. He finally huffs, gives a dismissive wave, and Genji moves around the table and toward the door. Jesse stands up and follows without another word. He’s wearing an expression that oozes impenitence, and simply shrugs at Hank Belford, who hurls daggers from his eyes toward him as he passes by.

Genji leads them back outside and around the corner. There is a stone path leading toward an outhouse that Jesse can see from where they stand, but they don’t move any closer to it.

In fact, they have barely taken three steps before Genji Shimada turns and lurches back toward Jesse McCree to wrap him in a crushing hug.

Jesse responds immediately, lifting the lighter boy off of the ground with arms around his waist. He even dares to twirl, which makes Genji laugh, which makes Jesse’s heart _soar_. The weight in Jesse’s body melts away as they embrace, fall and tumble into each other, as the sun rises on their long-awaited reunion and Jesse finally feels like he can breathe again.

“Hi,” Genji says into his collar.

“Hi,” Jesse responds, and then he lifts up Genji’s face with two calloused palms on his cheeks and slants his mouth over his.

It has been two months since they’ve seen last each other -- seven since they first met, on Deadlock’s first trip to Hanamura, when the gang had been invited to stay on a Shimada property, and Jesse had slipped his holophone code in Genji’s hand after two days full of back and forth staring and a note left on his bedside table. It was a haiku about the clouds breaking after a storm. Reading it had stirred something awake in Jesse that he hadn’t felt before, and it was then that he knew he couldn’t go back to New Mexico before finding a way to contact Genji again. They’d cultivated their relationship through late night phone calls, plenty of daily messages, and even the occasional physical letter. Jesse kept his in his pillowcase.

“Surprised your dad let you do your hair like that. Looks better in person than it did on camera,” Jesse teases through kisses, pushing his hand through Genji’s verdant tresses to emphasize his point.

“He is being lenient with me these days.” There is something unidentifiable, barely detectable, in Genji’s voice when he says this. Jesse furrows his brow, but then remembers their clock is ticking and leans forward again to kiss him once more. He figures he’ll ask about it later, when he doesn’t have the opportunity to be close to him like this.

“It is nice to see you,” Genji whispers. He can’t contain his smile as Jesse moves down to pepper kisses along his jaw, slots his wider hips between his slim ones, fills up his senses with the stinging scent of cigarette smoke and the burning fire in his touches as they roll lightly up and down his sides. 

“Y’know, y’almost gave it away,” Jesse murmurs. His forehead is tucked against Genji’s temple as he rests, breathes, clutches tightly to his orange scarves, “Bein’ all… dunno, eager n’stuff back there.”  
“Have some perspective, Jesse,” Genji chuckles. “I am only showing you to the water closet.”  
“Yeah, but-” Genji silences him with a kiss to his cheek, then to the corner of his mouth.  
“You are much too pessimistic.”

The pause is so thick that Jesse can barely hear the rustle of the night through it.

“Can’t help it, I guess. Don’t wanna... risk anything.”

He knows exactly how it’d play out if they were caught. For one thing, Deadlock members weren’t supposed to fall in love. For another, Sojiro Shimada wanted his sons to marry women. There was no other option. Jesse doesn’t like to think about that future, but he can’t deny the nights he’s laid awake and done just that. He’s wondered if it just be better for them to just stop. But then he remembers that this is quite literally all he has, and Jesse McCree has never had much sense of self-preservation, but he knows, feels it in his bones, that this is the one thing that he cannot possibly let go of.

Genji rests his palm against Jesse’s cheek, and Jesse returns to reality, swears he can feel his entire soul through his touch. His eyes are so kind, Jesse thinks, so full of youth and wonder and everything Jesse wishes he could see in his own when he looked in the mirror. All he sees these days are the ever-splintering fragments of a man on the run, of a _boy_ on the run, for God’s sake, he’s only seventeen and his nights are sleepless, his days endless, his heart aches every second for the child who used to sit in his mother’s lap with superhero action figures and dreams of saving the world one day--

Genji wipes away the tear that has trickled down to stop somewhere within the long, twisting scar that runs along Jesse’s cheek. He thinks to himself, for a moment, about his own path: how it will inevitably lead to disaster; how he tries to feign ignorance, acting out in the form of green hair and orange clothes and slouched shoulders; how, even still, he overhears his father’s hushed conversations with his brother late at night, conversations about _him_ ; how even though he was allowed a youth, maybe that wasn’t better after all because now he’s experienced the feeling of wings spread wide and he knows, he just _knows_ there’s something waiting to strike him down just beyond the edges of the garden. He knows the shot will be fatal.

“You are scared,” says Genji. “I do not blame you. I cannot make you any promises right now. I wish I could.”  
“I know,” says Jesse, “I don’t need you to. This… It’s enough for me.”  
“You leave at sunrise tomorrow?”  
“Yes.”  
“Do you know when you will be back?”  
“No.”  
“But you will be back?”  
“I think so. If not, I’ll… Find a way back. I’ll come back. O-Or you could leave.”  
“You know I cannot leave.” Jesse’s shoulders fall. He does know.

“I love you,” Jesse says. It isn’t a plea. It is a promise.

“I love you, too.”

They remain still as garden statues for a few short breaths, letting their thoughts wind down into silence, letting their fingertips commit to memory the feeling of the other’s clothes, skin, anything. They don’t know when they see each other again, if at all, but Jesse only feels calm. It’s respite, he thinks. The temporary stillness in the eye of the hurricane, where even though you are hyper-aware of the inevitable, irreparable damage ahead, you exist _then_ , where nothing is bad and the sky is green and swirling and, above all, _calm._

They embrace with one final kiss before Genji steps sideways, out of Jesse’s hold, and starts back toward the front of the pagoda. He looks sad, and it makes Jesse sad, but he’s too in love with how his cheeks glow in the moonlight to want to dwell on that sadness for long. When he looks at Genji, he doesn’t think about his past. He doesn’t even think about his future. He thinks about now, feels Genji’s hand brush against his while they walk side by side, ponders on the cohesion of their togetherness that his life has never known until now.

Peace. Respite.

On the way back out, after Hank Belford had reached his negotiation quota and the beginnings of a deal had been agreed upon, Jesse brings up the rear again, this time in the hopes that nobody notices him pull a flower from a bush as he passes it.

As he tucks it into his jacket pocket, he thinks his own need for that single green Chrysanthemum far outweighs Sojiro Shimada’s, and that it will be much happier with him than it ever was in that garden, anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> To clarify, this takes place literally right before Deadlock is busted and Jesse is recruited into Blackwatch. I took some artistic liberties and aged Jesse at 17 and Genji at 16. I know they’re technically two years apart, but let’s just say these events are... after Genji’s 16th birthday and before Jesse’s 18th.
> 
> Anyway, thank you so much for reading! This is my first work I've ever posted?? It was completed as part of a trade with my good friend Magicnation (please go read her works, she's incredible) who wanted some good sweet McGenji. So I wrote it.


End file.
